The Rise and Fall of the Dark Lady Granger
by Growling
Summary: Many Dark Lords have purported to be the greatest dark lords to have ever lived. Only one person was given that title by scholarly and popular consensus of the world: the Dark Lady Hermione Granger, the greatest Dark Lord to have ever lived.
1. The Greatest Dark Lord To Have Lived

The Rise and Fall of the Dark Lady Granger

By: Bartholomew Bagshot

In memory of my Great, Great Aunt who taught me the wonders of history.

Prologue: The Greatest Dark Lady Who Ever Lived

There used to be a man who considered himself to be the greatest Dark Lord who ever lived. He fashioned himself a name that became so feared the populace would dare not utter it, even after almost everyone believe him dead. He had two 'reigns of terror'. Both were ended by the same man.

The first reign of terror saw many old pureblood families exterminated. The first reign of terror saw the deaths of many good men and women who had done nothing worse than being born to muggles or married to muggles. That war saw its end when the Dark Lord sought out a baby boy prophesized to be his equal and his death. That boy survived the Dark Lord's Killing Curse and banished the Dark Lord for, what most people believed, eternity. So began the legend of Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived.

But, like the great Albus Dumbledore predicted, the Dark Lord rose from beyond the grave more powerful and terrifying than ever before. In many ways, the second reign of terror was better than the first. The Dark Lord sought to preserve the old pureblood families and many of those families lived through that time despite being at the mercy of the Dark Lord and his followers. However, in more ways, the second reign of terror was much worse. Muggleborns were lucky if they were killed, but often were sent to concentration camps where the Dark Lord's followers took great joy in practicing dark magic on them. The most common torture, after the use of Cruciatus Curse, was to take away muggleborns fertility in the most painful rituals possible. To accomplish this, of course, the Dark Lord took control of the Ministry of Magic and effectively became the ruler of Britain. The Dark Lord was, again, defeated by the Boy-Who-Lived at the Battle of Hogwarts.

Despite his many triumphs and being the brief dictator of Britain, the Dark Lord Voldemort is not considered the greatest Dark Lord to have ever lived. He is considered greater than any Dark Lord before him; greater even than Gellert Grindelwald who almost succeeded in taking over Europe, but with _muggles_.

But, not the greatest. Indeed, that title belongs to Hermione Granger, the woman who almost destroyed the magical kingdom of Britain in a matter of a few short weeks with just the magic in the tip of her wand.


	2. Rage

I admit to being tired and stressed. These symptoms are similar, in fact, to my third year of Hogwarts where I once again attempted to do everything without consideration to my limitations. Juggling too many things at once is, one my say, the story of my life. My work, which consists of fighting tooth and nail for every scrap the pureblood bigoted idiots deign to throw my way, my research (because, really, life simply isn't worth living without a good research project), my children (my baby Rose and my man-child of a husband Ron), and trying to live up to every expectation ever set upon me, either by myself or others.

And really, many of my problems are my own doing. You reap what you sow. I chose this life. I thought it'd be a good life, too, when I chose it. And it is, mostly. I shouldn't complain, really. It must simply be the stress getting to me and settling across my shoulders in a tired ache.

That made up my mind. Time for bed. Time for rest. No more research for a little while, let the other muggleborns fight for the scraps for a week or so, don't see the mother-in-law for a month (hopefully), and I'll just sleep.

Ron was already in bed as I slipped beneath the covers. He wasn't snoring so he either wasn't asleep, or only sleeping lightly. He mumbled as the bed moved beneath us. Asleep then. That was alright with me. I wasn't interested in conversation.

A flick of my wand put the lights out. As I settled, Ron rolled over and slung a long, lanky arm over me. That was fine. I was used to sleeping against him.

I was in a light doze when his hands found the hem of my night dress and began tugging it up. I grumbled. "Not now, Ron, I'm tired."

"You're always tired," he mumbled, grinning (I'm sure) and kissing the back of neck. His hands were pawing at the skin of my belly and ribs, the ticks of his fingers tickling the underside of my breast. "So, I was thinking, Rosie must be lonely."

Now he was definitely kissing my neck, licking and nipping in a way that, if I was in the mood, would have set my skin on fire. But, at the moment, I was merely tolerating his advances and, as such, the sensation of his lips on my skin was, at best, pleasant, but mostly bland. I shifted so we were facing each other, removing his access to my neck.

"Are you suggesting we get a dog?" I know exactly what he means, of course, but I really have no desire to entertain any of his fancies tonight.

"What?" He mumbled, brows furrowing in momentary confusion. "No."

"Then what are you suggesting, Ron?"

His eyes were dark and half-lidded with lust as he grinned at me. He grabbed my arms and rolled us over so I was trapped between the mattress and his body, my hands pushing lightly against his shoulders. And then he kissed me deeply, oblivious to my lack of enthusiastic response. He pulled back, still grinning, and reached for my wand. "This." And then he threw my wand softly into the corner of the dark room and rolled his hips into mine. I gasped at the disrespect for my wand, but he was kissing me again before I could voice my discontent.

His hands were busy trying to shift my night gown up my body and his hips continued rolling into mine with steady rhythm. "Ron," I murmured, breathless by the time his lips migrated from mine to the line of my jaw.

"Mmm."

I'm not sure what he heard in his name, but he took it as an invitation to pick up the pace. Suddenly his thumbs were hooked into the waistband of my panties and pushing down as his mouth sucked at my pulse point.

Enough was enough.

"Ron!" I shouted sharply in that tone he knew to obey or else. "Stop."

His hands moved back up to my hips, leaving my panties half way down my thighs. He continued kissing my neck, but slowly, as if he was trying for sensuous. "What's wrong, baby?"

Huffing because, really, the man rarely listens anyway, "Did you not stop to think maybe I don't want another child right now? At the very least, you didn't even ask if I wanted to have sex right now!"

That stopped his seductive movements entirely and I could see him blinking stupidly above me. In fact, I'm sure if the lights were on, I'd see just a hint of red across the rims of his ears. "What? Of course you do!"

I sighed tiredly, pushing experimentally on his shoulders to see if he would budge off. He didn't take the hint. "Of course I do what, Ronald?"

"Want more kids!" He exclaimed as if it were obvious. And really, it was, but I had to ask to be sure he wasn't being incredibly imbecilic. At least, not any more than he was already being tonight. "You talk about it all the time."

"I do not!" I replied, I admit, a tad huffily.

"Oh, come on, love, don't lie." He laughed. I pushed at his shoulders again and this time the mirth helped him roll onto his side, arm bent and head resting on his hand. I took the freedom of movement to right my clothing which just seemed to make him grin wider. "It's all you ever talk about!"

And that's what made me angry. I can tell he caught onto this particular shift in mood because his grinning face morphed into a confused grimace. "I'll have you know, Ronald, I only talk about having more children with _your mother_ and only because that is the only thing _she_ wants to talk about!"

"But—"

"But I can see how it seems that way considering the only time we see each other for any serious length of time is when we're visiting her or she's visiting us!" With a glare, I rolled off the bed and slid slowly into the corner my wand was haphazardly thrown. "Lumos." A weak light lit on the tip of my wand and I breathed with relief as I picked it up.

"Hey! That's not my fault! Ow!" I admittedly winced to when the lights came back on with a flick of my wrist. "You're always busy!"

I narrowed my eyes at his lounging form, ignoring the bright blue spot in the middle of his face, "There are so many things wrong with what you just said that I don't even know where to begin!" He scoffed and I growled under my breath at him. "For one, I give you a schedule every week. I circle the time when I'm free and at home. Hell, I even made dinner when I first started giving you the schedule. But, somehow, you always managed to avoid spending time with your wife unless your mother or sex was involved. So, no, it is not actually my fault, and very much yours!"

"Now that's not fair, Herms!" I gritted my teeth at that slight. Nicknames like that were only used when he was purposely trying to get me worked up into a right frightful rage. "I'm busy too, and I can't spend all my time at home."

The rage was a swirling ball of fire in my chest now, smashing at the crumbling walls trying to hold it back. I was too close to exploding. Ron could see I was close to screaming and crying and the pointed gleam in his eye and flustered red of his face told me he knew. After all, getting me to storm off in incoherent rage or angry tears was the only way he _won_ in our arguments.

"You think I don't know what you do with your time all day?" I asked quietly. He paled quite abruptly, maybe realizing just how much trouble he was in. "Ever since we were kids, you found any way to skive off work as much and for as long as possible. At best, I did it for you. At worst, it never got done. You haven't changed, Ronald, and it wasn't hard to get Harry to tell me that you'd rather be at a pub, drinking and gambling your money away, than at home with me, _or your daughter_."

Ron scoffed, that defiant, stubborn look on his face that told me he was about to say something incredibly rude, stupid, and/or insensitive. "Lighten up, Herms," he told me snidely, "it's just a bit of fun. You should try it sometime, if you're even capable of it."

I was shaking with the effort to hold back that ball of all-encompassing rage, "Do you have any idea what I have to do to make sure you can do as little as possible all day? I have to clean the house, scrape the bottom of the barrel for work in a ministry where nothing I do will _ever_ be respected! I have to take care of Rose while listening to your mother lecture me on how to be good mother, a good cook, a good housekeeper, a good wife and telling me I should just quit my damn, stupid job and marry the god damned house and pop out babies like her! When all I want to do is show the world how wrong it is! How wrong they are! And make it so no creature is treated like a slave! So no person is treated like a second-class citizen because of who they were born to! I—"

"You should listen to Mum, Herms, she knows what she's talking about," Ron cut in, grinning cheekily.

I don't know if he meant as a joke, to lighten the mood, to make me laugh, to stop me from being quite so angry, or to make angry, to push me that last bit over the ledge into raging oblivion.

All I know after that, for a little while, is that ball of rage I've been holding inside all my life finally broke free and I knew that I would have been better off without the wizarding world and the world would be better without the wizarding world.


End file.
